The more that you read, the more things you will know...

The House of Narcissus

Story by Margaret Wild

Pictures by Wayne Harris

Highlights of Chapter 2	Highlights of Chapter 6
·      The context and purpose of reading ·      Selected Texts ·      The reading cue systems or sources of information ·      Literary practices ·      The basic strategies of reading ·      Effective reading	·      Different types of texts ·      Concepts about print ·      Text and the locus of meaning ·      Context and text ·      Reading literary texts ·      Reading factual texts ·      Selecting texts for the reading program ·      Matching texts to students’ needs

The New Ideas the Group Gained from Chapter Two and Six of Winch (2010)                     Chapter 2                                                         Chapter 6
The way in which texts are constructed within a social and cultural context. We came to realise that when we read we need to be mindful of both the context within which the text was written and the purpose of why it was written. We came to understand that this knowledge will enhance our reading and make it much more effective.	Our engagement with the text teaches us something about how to read it and about how to become a reader.
That there are four main areas of importance when it comes to reading. These can be described as: - The context in which we read - The texts we read -The knowledge we need in order to read - The skills we employ as we read	We read literary texts to engage in the pleasure and the excitement of entering into the world of the book.
The skills effective readers use when they are interacting with texts to achieve particular purposes. These skills include; code breaking practices, text-participant practices, text-user practices and text-analyst practices.	Shared reading texts enable focused discussion and instruction about reading strategies.

Questions from Chapter 2	Questions from Chapter 6
Can texts be written for multiple social and cultural contexts?	How can we help students engage more deeply with a range of multimodal texts without confusing the many text types?
What is the difference between an ordinary reader and an effective reader?	When choosing class texts for guided reading how do we make sure that they are ones that will support them and provide enough challenge to promote new learning?

Interesting Finds
Something that the group found surprising was how much is involved with reading and how much the reader isn’t aware of and probably not even the educator. This includes things such as the skills, the basic strategies of reading, what effective reading consists of as well as the importance of cue systems.	Something we found interesting was the way texts can be categorized as factual or literary. We also found that literary texts are very important for an effective reading program and that factual texts can sometimes present challenges for readers.

The Growing Story

Ruth Krauss and Helen Oxenbury

This story was about a little boy who watches everything on the farm grow and worries that he is not growing by comparing himself against the chicks, the puppy, the trees and the crops.

The book contains quite a lot of text on each page, but the author uses the changing of the seasons and growth of the plants and animals to point out that just because we cannot see something it does not mean that it is not occurring.

The growing story could be used in the classroom to discuss how we grow and there is a height chart that comes with the book that could be used to record younger students' heights at the start of the term and then again at the end to see how they have grown.

The Naked Penguin

Written by: Kym Lardner

Illustrated by: Oliver Lardner

Pearl and Charlie are very good friends but it just so happened that they are very different in every way. Pearly loves solving mysteries and is a show-off whereas Charlie likes to read, is always scared and is very shy. These two friends learn that it is important to be able to support each other even if they don’t have an interest in it.